You and I
by angiesmile
Summary: ONE-SHOT based on Ian and Jack's feelings for each other before the Stormbreaker mission and after Ian's funeral, Ian is a little OOC as I wanted to give him some more feelings :


**AN:** I know I should be working on Lynx and Cub - I am!! As I have FINALLY finished clearing my room so Dad now no longer has an excuse to ban me from the laptop XD...anyways I was listening to the song 'You & I' (well the reprise :P) from 'Chess' (don't knock it it's actually a really good music and it's written by the same people who wrote ABBA's songs) and this idea came to me...well actually the plot bunnies attacked me and so I wrote it...I hope you like it!!

**DISCLAIMER:** I do not own Alex Rider or any of the characters from the series as all of my plots and plans so far have failed and I can't compose catchy tunes for the life of me so I obviously do not own 'Chess' or any of the songs from it...

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'_You and I, we've seen it all chasing our hearts' desires,_

_But we go on pretending – stories like ours have happy endings…'_

Jack ran down the stairs quickly after Ian. It was the middle of the night and she had seen him hastily packing a small duffle bag through the crack in the door. She knew that it was an almost impossible task to try and make him stay and not to go but she knew she **had** to try.

"Ian!" she called quietly as to not wake Alex who was sleeping just upstairs. He heard her voice and turned to look up into her blue eyes with his soft brown eyes. He didn't want to go but what choice did he have? If he didn't they would send Jack away and he wouldn't be able to deal with that – little did he know this would be the exact same reason that his small, innocent nephew would be dragged into the business. She was the only thing that grounded him after he came back each time, sure Alex helped but he just didn't have that link with him – after all he was _John's_ kid not his.

"Jack, please," he said, his brown eyes so deep that Jack felt like she could almost drown in them.

"Don't go Ian, please," she pleaded. Each time he left she wasn't sure if she would ever see him again. She had figured out why he always came back with injuries and lame excuses for them a few months back when she had practically beat it out of him as he wasn't in any sort of fit shape to fit back.

"I have to Jack, I have no choice,"

"You always have a choice! Everyone always has a choice to make!" she snapped back at him.

"Trust me the other option was much worse," he replied calmly, gripping her upper arms lightly, trying to convince her to let him go. She took a small step forward and reached up placing her small pale hand on the side of his face feeling the small amount of stubble remaining on his cheek. She closed her eyes and leaned up to place a sweet, chaste kiss on to his lips.

'_Hold me and tell me that we'll meet again…'_

"How can I trust you like that when I don't know if I'll ever see you again?" she asked gently, running her thumb across his cheekbone trying to commit every contour of his face to memory. He watched her, looking at her searching blue eyes and her curly red hair hanging in almost ringlets. He did the only thing that he could think of at the time, and pulled her into a tight embrace, one of his arms around her waist and the other cupping the back of her head, which she had instinctively turned and placed on his shoulder.

"I'll be back Jack, I promise…" he murmured into her hair absentmindedly twirling it around his fingers. He felt bad knowing that he had most likely told her a lie as he couldn't grantee that he would actually be back. He had even gone through the process of writing both Jack and Alex letters that evening should he not return, he went through that process every time before he left for a mission. In the former he mainly wrote how much he loved her, truly loved her, and how he would have given anything to attempt to live a quiet life with her but they all knew how John's attempt at that had ended up; he had also included the simple diamond ring he had brought for her in a spur of a moment move, even though he would never ask her to marry him – he couldn't endanger her like that, yet he couldn't stand to hurt her enough to keep her safe. He just hoped that she wouldn't need to read the letter he wrote for her as that would mean that he would have hurt her so much more than anything else he could do – it would mean that he was dead.

"I don't think I'd be able to cope without you Ian," she muttered into his neck, "I love you too much for that to work."

"I'm sure you'd cope Jack you're a strong woman," he assured her after a momentary pause as his brain processed the second part of what she had said; the three words that he had been avoiding in case anyone had bugged the house. He bent his head down while turning her head with the hand that had been in her hair, placing a kiss on her lips. Their lips melded together as if they were meant to be connected. Jack's arms snaked up around his neck and she started to fiddle with the short hairs at the nape of his neck. Reluctantly Ian pulled back to fill his lungs with air, and whispered in her ear, "I love you Jack, more than you could possibly imagine."

He started to walk off picking up his forgotten duffle bag in one hand. Jack reached out with both of her hands clasping one of his, she had a sense of unease about the mission he was about to embark upon yet she was at her wits end as to what to do to make him stay. He turned back looking into her searching eyes, as she repeated what she had said while she was still on the stairs, "Don't go Ian, please…"

"I'll be back Jack, I promise," he replied pulling his hand gently out of her grip and stroked the side of her face fleetingly. She leaned into the touch that was gone all too quickly.

Jack could only stare at Ian's back as he retreated out of the door. He turned back around at the door and sent her a faint crooked smile, his deep brown eyes filled with love and sadness for having to leave her, and with that he closed the door not knowing that that eyeful he had of Jack would be the last he ever had.

-

Ian sat behind the wheel of his car determined to lose the helicopter that was on his tail, he had promised Jack he would come back to her and he didn't want to break that promise. He knew that if the helicopter managed to catch up with him he would be dead. He turned to look out the window to see how much distance he had left between himself and the helicopter and looked right into the barrels of two matching guns wielded by none other than Yassen Gregorovich. He only had time to whisper on word before the guns were fired, "Jack…"

_I guess I won't be coming back then Jack…_ he thought just before lapsing into the strong, cold grip of death.

Far away in a house in Chelsea in southwest London a red headed woman jerked awake suddenly, panting hard without any reason that she knew of just a sudden feeling of dread. She simply pulled a small pure white teddy bear towards her, Snowy, that had been given to her by Ian the Christmas before, knowing she wouldn't be able to get back to sleep anytime soon.

-

A few hours later, Jack was still laying in her bed the white bear griped tightly to her chest as she curled up. That's when she heard the knocking on the door. She glanced at the clock and it's bright figures blared back up at her, it was four o'clock in the morning. Instantly knew that something was wrong, people don't just turn up in the middle of the night – except Ian, though Ian always had his keys with him, and if he didn't he knew the combination of places that the 'hide-a-keys' were located. She dragged herself off of the bed and threw on her silk bathrobe, also a present from Ian. She hesitantly walked out of her bedroom and towards the stairs.

Once she reached the stairs, she saw the flashing blue lights coming in from the window in the door and her heart skipped a few beats as she dragged herself numbly down the stairs. She opened the door and was greeted by the sight of two police officers, one male, one female, and if possible her heart dropped further, she knew that there was only one reason that they could possibly be there, though numbly refused to accept it.

"Good Evening Ma'am," the male officer greeted his face solemn.

"We are here to regretfully inform you that at two o'clock this morning Ian Alexander Rider was killed in a road accident," the female officer told Jack as gently as possible. That was all it took, Jack fell down to sitting down on the floor as her knees buckled from underneath of her. The officers leant forward to help her, though were beaten to it as Alex, who had been listening on the stairs made his presence known and pulled Jack into an embrace as she sobbed on his shoulder.

"He…he…promised…he…would…come…back…he….promised…" she managed to choke out between sobs.

The two police officers shifted slightly on their feet feeling just the slightest bit awkward. Alex noticed their discomfort and told them, "You have brought us the news, you've done your job, and you can leave now as long as you close the door behind you."

The two officers sent him a quick sympathetic and grateful look and left closing the door behind them, leaving the two to comfort each other.

-

A few days later Jack stood in front of the mirror smoothing out her plain black dress, she had already tamed her hair as much as she could, she had left it down as that was the way Ian had told her he preferred it./ She wanted to look as best as she could for his funeral, she wanted to send him off dignified – that was precisely the reason she refused to wear any make-up today, she had already been crying twice so far getting ready and she would look a state by the end of the funeral. She smoothed her dress out once more before leaving the room.

She met Alex downstairs; he was as immaculate as she was; also wanting to send Ian off dignified. They left the house in silence and went to the cemetery for the funeral. Jack watched the confusion on Alex's face as the priest mentioned how 'patriotic' Ian was. As they lowered the coffin into the ground the floodgates opened as Jack began to weep openly, knowing that she would never see Ian again.

-

A few hours later Jack was pacing the empty house trying to decide what to do to keep herself occupied, in the vain hope she would be able to last more than quarter of an hour without crying. Alex had run off right after the funeral for reasons unknown to her, she just accepted it as his way of grieving. Somehow she had managed to get her self to Ian's door. She hesitantly pushed it open and went over to his bed and saw two identical letters sitting on it in the middle, both with Ian's script on the outside. The only difference was that one said Jack on it and the other Alex. She picked up the envelope unsure if she could cope with reading it right then but opened it anyway. She pulled out the paper that was folded up inside, and began to read.

_Dearest Jack,_

_If you are reading this you know that I have died on this mission as I've not returned to remove the letters before you found them. _

_I want you to know that I loved you, and still love you, more than anything in my entire life so far. The only reason that I have stopped myself from telling you this is because in my line of work you can anger a lot of very dangerous people and I feared if I did tell you I would put you in danger if anyone else should find out. I wouldn't be able to live with myself if anything were to happen to you, though I couldn't bring myself to hurt you so much as to get you out of danger forever, selfish of me I know but I needed you near me as you always managed to bring me back when I returned from each and every mission._

_Now that that confession is over with I must ask a favour of you, would you look after Alex for me. I admit I never properly bonded with the poor kid but he just reminded me of my brother and it was as much as I could bear doing what I did with him. He is only a teenager after all, I hope that the money that I left in the bank accounts is enough for you two to live off of as I am not sure how you would be able to find time to have a job when looking after such an active kid as Alex._

She turned over the page to the next one and immediately her eyes were drawn to a sparkling, single diamond ring that was cello-taped to the paper about two thirds of the way down where the writing ended and she gasped, then continued reading.

_As you can probably see by now, there is a ring attached to this letter, this ring Jack I brought for you. I brought it for you even though I knew I would probably never actually give it to you by asking you to marry me. I couldn't put you in that danger. You don't know how many times I dreamt of dropping everything and leaving with you like John and Helen did. Though we all know how that turned out so I just left it to my imagination._

_I hope you like the ring, my dearest Jack, I saw it and decided it sparkled just like you name and your eyes when you smile._

_My Deepest Love,_

_Ian_

_xxx_

_

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**AN:** I hope you liked it! do you feel the urge to click on the overly nice green button below? well you should :P Please review - they make me smile!

Till next time!

angiesmile

xxx


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